The Oldest Profession
by Firefly99
Summary: MGS2, challengefic - or rather darefic. A Metal Gear developer gets less than he bargained for.


It started fine enough. Payton loved business trips. He loved his business, despite the way it was starting to head, and he loved getting out into the world, being able to spend time away from his kids and his shrill, bony wife. Payton had always had weaknesses, and while his weakness for women had been sated more than its fill by the apathetic and unexciting Mrs. Payton, his weakness for men was one best and safest indulged away from the home. And that had formed the 'routine'. Buy the local paper. Buy some drinks. Call the family. Call a number on the back pages. Go to the hotel. Drink.

The problem had started when the man arrived. He arrived a little late, teasingly calling attention to how he kept Payton waiting, and let him pour him a glass, although he set it down on top of the end table without looking at it again. He was an American; older, but with that sense of effortless sexual control that older men get when age doesn't rub the edge off their attractiveness, and even when he made jokes his eyes were shockingly hard and cold.

"You won't believe this," Payton said, by way of small talk, undoing his tie, "but every other escort in the area I tried was busy already. All booked up."

The escort gave a knowing smirk, and said, "try and think of the one guy out there having the time of his life."

Payton laughed at that, although it wasn't that funny. He counted out the bills, asked if it was enough for the hour, and the escort agreed. In turn, the escort offered to pour Payton another glass, and he accepted, so the escort did, crouching low over the bottle with his back to Payton as if he was more interested in it than in him. Drinking it, he realised how nervous he must have seemed, but it was too late - the escort had noticed.

"It's not about you," he explained, when the escort asked, "it's about business. My company's pretty close to going under, you see." Payton drained the dregs of his glass. "It's why the board has all been called out here. Going to be a few of the worst kind of business meeting, chance of getting laid off unless my team wins our bid. And the military budget's been hit by the economy slump as hard as anything, so at the very least we'll be getting - " he broke off, suddenly realising who he was talking to. "Look, er, never mind."

"Because someone in my position can't understand business politics, am I right?" the escort snarled, slightest, knowing smile on his stubbled lips. He sat beside Payton on the bed, and extended a hand to his shoulder. "Listen, it might be all boardrooms and bureaucracy for you, but even in my line of work there's the threat of running out of your own value, losing your place in the world." His thumb began to massage into the muscle underneath Payton's shoulder. "No human historians know for sure what the oldest profession is, but I'm sure it's my own. It's visceral, amoral, and necessary. You see the worst parts of humanity, the lowest traits they have, so often that it's difficult not to lose faith in it. But I chose to gain it. I don't work for any higher power, any big chief getting fat from the spoils of my dirty work. I'm not a tool of anyone."

Payton blinked, looked at his watch, and let his head fall forward onto his chest where it felt most comfortable.

"So, then, what do I do?" the escort continued. "My profession's something fickle, that changes with the times, and yet all-pervasive in every aspect of every culture. Someone once told me it was the fundamental goal of all life," his eyes clouded, "but, even if that's the case, there are those who believe we will lose our place in the coming generation. And that, loss of a place, is hard for anyone to accept. Me, or you. The danger is letting that obscure your dreams for that same coming generation. If there's no need for you - "

Payton's eyes slid closed.

" - if there's no-one who wants you, if there's no purpose for you, no-one should delude themselves into believing they can escape their own redundancy. The world needs what the world needs and accepting that, in the face of running out of time, is the hardest thing for anyone to do. We all cling on to our preconceptions of destiny, our..."

The escort's voice carried on, settling in Payton's mind like a smog, until he could hear no more words, just long lingering sounds. In his stupor, he occasionally felt something pulling him forward, a sudden sensation of falling that made him aware of some movement or darkness, but he was unable to shake off the pseudo-sleep that claimed him, regardless of how hard he begged himself to wake.

For a second, maybe in a moment of lucidity or maybe in a moment of the deepest dream, he heard an American voice he'd never heard before say, clearly, "that's great, but what do I do with all of the – er – guys?" He heard a solid footstep, and the escort's voice respond, "Well, you've paid them for the night and they deserve a break. Why don't we get them all something to eat?" Then the patterns on the ceiling spun into spider's webs or rows of dense lettering that shifted when he read it, and it was gone.

It didn't occur to him that he'd been drugged until after he'd put the disk into the presentation device in the centre of the boardroom table.

"Our department has machined a working prototype of a potential solution to the current walking tank crisis," he'd been explaining, sliding what he'd thought was the specs disc into the drive in the table's lip, "based on the specifications of the R-type EXtra "Metal Gear" model – a true synergy between current BAE technological standards and the world climate, in order to continue deterrent policies and replace outdated - "

The holographic projector chose this moment to explode with a sound like a gunshot, and the air became thick with yellow smoke and the screams of execs diving for cover. That had been when he'd remembered he hadn't got exactly what he paid for from the escort.

In the hearing, months later, the technician said that the projector disk was a blank save for a hack which bypassed the cooling system in the projector's BIOS, while pushing high currents through the table's lamp subsystem. At that point, most of the government interest in him had mercifully died down; the warehouse machining "British Bulldog" walking tank derivatives had gone up in smoke and the media were blaming it on those Philanthropy crackpots behind that whole thing in Manhattan, and few people cared about the fifteen ounces of Semtex found in his laptop case, coat and shoes any more. Nonetheless, the only person defending him had been his wife, who'd spent that one night up at the phone spitting abuse at nosy journalists, not even moving from her spot.

He'd found himself bringing her the occasional cup of tea once he'd figured out what she was doing. Eventually, he'd told her, and while it wouldn't have made sense for her to try to divorce him in his previous position what with the boys, the fact that it had never even crossed her mind with him sacked and shamed meant more to him than he'd admit to her. Besides, after that experience, he never wanted to hire an escort again, so it wasn't much of a concession to have to make.


End file.
